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LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

University  of  California. 

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Class 

QUICKENED  C  ON  SCI  EN  C  E 


tV  JAMES   BURRILL  ANGELL 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE   UNIVERSITY   O 


.  D., 

MICHIGAN 


A   BACCALAUREAT.       DDRESS 
DELIVERED  JUNE  14,  190S 


h;  i^iRL^    BY  THE   UN:\- 
190S 


http://www.archive.org/details/ageofquickenedcoOOangerich 


THE   AGE   OF 
QUICKENED  CONSCIENCE 


BY  JAMES   BURRILL  ANGELL,  LL.  D., 
PRESIDENT  OF  THE   UNIVERSITY  OF   MICHIGAN 


A  BACCALAUREATE   ADDRESS 
DELIVERED  JUNE   14,  1908 


ANN  ARBOR,   MICH. 

PUBLISHED  BY  THE  UNIVERSITY 

1908 


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The  Age  of  Quickened  Conscience 


BACCALAUREATE  DISCOURSE 

BY  PRESIDENT  ANGELL,  DELIVERED  JUNE  14 

If  any  proof  is  needed  to  show  that  men  are  made 
with  an  instinct  for  associated  life,  not  for  individual 
isolation,  it  is  furnished  by  the  frequent  spectacle 
of  the  rapid  spread  through  a  whole  region  or  a 
whole  people  of  some  taste  or  passion.  It  may  be  a 
fancy  for  some  game,  as  croquet  or  tennis  or  base 
ball,  and  in  the  space  of  a  few  months  a  whole  na- 
tion is  devoting  all  its  leisure  hours  to  it;  or  to  rise 
to  higher  objects  the  passion  for  revolution  in  a  few 
months  seizes  on  the  citizens  of  France  and  over- 
turns the  throne  which  has  stood  unshaken  for  cen- 
turies. So  the  cry  of  Peter,  the  Crusader,  suddenly 
startles  all  western  Europe  and  shakes  the  continent 
beneath  the  tread  of  armies,  inflamed  with  the  un- 
quenchable passion  to  deliver  the  holy  sepulchre 
from  the  hand  of  the  Saracen.  It  is  not  surprising 
therefore  that  the  fire  of  religious  zeal  should  at 
times  as  in  1857,  when  once  kindled,  spread  even 
through  the  market  places  and  that  the  halls  of  the 
money  changers  should  become  the  scene  of  prayer 
and  of  penitent  confession.  •  It  is  not  strange  that  as 
in  our  own  time,  at  least  in  the  middle  west,  the 
passion  for  popular  education  should  be  spreading 
everywhere  and  overflowing  school  and  college  and 
university  with  eager  youth  longing  to  train  them- 
selves in  the  most  efficient  manner  for  business  or 
professions. 


187388 


Since  this  imitative  spirit,  the  social  instinct,  the 
sympathetic  impulse,  have  so  led  mankind  to  act 
together  in  masses  towards  some  common  end,  we 
need  not  regard  it  as  astonishing  that  to  our  great 
delight  we  are  witnessing  a  new  awakening  of  con- 
science all  over  the  nation.  How  or  why  it  appeared 
at  exactly  this  time  it  may  not  be  easy  to  say.  And 
for  the  purpose  of  this  discussion  it  may  not  be  im- 
portant to  decide.  But  this  awakening  manifests 
itself  in  a  great  variety  of  ways. 

Its  reaction  in  our  own  country  against  intemper- 
ance in  drinking  has  been  so  sudden  and  has  spread 
over  so  wide  a  territory  and  among  communities 
where  it  was  unlooked  for  that  the  movement  has 
seemed  almost  incredible.  Even  in  Germany  and 
France  and  England  science  is  beginning  to  warn 
the  public  that  reform  in  drinking  habits  is  essential 
to  the  preservation  of  national  vigor,  and  that  a 
higher  morality  is  essential  to  the  protection  of  the 
public  health. 

But  especially  has  indignation  been  excited  at 
malfeasance  in  the  management  of  great  corpora- 
tions, in  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of  public  office, 
in  the  betrayal  of  fiduciary  trusts.  No  doubt  in  the 
excited  state  of  the  public  mind  reckless  charges 
have  been  made  against  innocent  corporations  and 
individuals,  and  have  been  widely  and  unjustly  cir- 
culated before  the  accused  have  had  opportunity  to 
defend  or  explain  their  acts.  But  even  those  who 
condemn  such  unjust  attacks  or  who  deem  extrav- 
agant the  language  used  in  assailing  some  who  are 
justly  criticised  confess  that  there  are  many  public 
evils  rightly  and  severely  complained  of. 

So  the  halls  of  legislation,  both  state  and  federal, 
have  been  for  months  resounding  with  discussions 
of  the  most  effective  legislation  to  prevent  misdeeds 
of  the  kind  referred  to.  The  courts  have  been  busy 
trying  persons  accused  of  them,  and  the  President 
with  his  accustomed  vigor  of  utterance  has  been  ap- 
pealing to  Congress  and  to  the  people  in  stimulation 

—4— 


of  a  sound  public  sentiment  in  the  maintainance  of 
honesty. 

I  need  not  say  to  you  who  have  been  here  for  the 
two  or  three  years  that  among  students  there  has 
been  a  wholesome  revolt  against  certain  abuses  in 
what  we  call  college  politics,  and  that  this  has  done 
not  a  little  to  purify  the  atmosphere  of  college  life. 

If  we  look  beyond  our  own  neighborhood  and 
even  beyond  our  own  country  we  find  that  through- 
out the  civilized  world  there  is  a  deep  feeling  that  a 
readjustment  is  needed  in  the  relations  of  the  em- 
ployer and  employed,  that  there  is  a  dangerous 
chasm  between  labor  and  capital,  that  somehow  in 
many  cases  the  workingman  is  not  receiving  his 
shares  of  the  products  which  his  industry  is  instru- 
mental in  creating.  However  men  may  differ  in 
their  proposed  solution  of  the  problem  presented  by 
this  difficulty,  yet  the  consciences  of  many  capital- 
ists are  prompting  them  to  study  the  problem  with 
as  much  honesty  and  sincerity  as  the  poorest  labor- 
er brings  to  it.  Never  was  there  a  time  when  the 
Christain  thinkers  of  the  world  were  so  earnestly 
seeking  what  remedy  the  gospels  of  Christ  have 
for  the  ailments  of  the  social  and  economic  organiz- 
ation of  mankind. 

Now  this  new  condition  of  things,  this  wide- 
spread quickening  of  conscience  is  a  great,  palpable 
fact  which  deeply  concerns  all  of  you,  who  are  just 
going  out  into  active  life.  You  cannot,  if  you  would, 
utterly  disregard  it. 

First,  it  is  a  grave  warning  not  to  try  for  success 
by  failing  to  reckon  with  this  state  of  public  con- 
science. The  legislator  who  gives  himself  to  the 
wretched  work  of  drafting  laws  so  that  they  may  be 
easily  evaded,  the  attorney  who  makes  a  special 
business  of  helping  crafty  men  evade  wholesome 
laws,  the  physician  who  by  quackery  and  pretense 
seeks  opportunities  to  trifle  with  human  life  or  to 
conceal  crime,  the  engineer  who  draws  papers  so  as 
to  further   plans    of    fraudulent    contractors,     the 

-5— 


teacher  who  organizes  and  conducts  his  school  so 
as  to  make  sure  of  drawing  inordinate  compensation 
from  wealthy  parents  rather  than  impart  solid  in- 
struction to  his  pupils,  the  captains  of  industry  who 
coin  their  gains  out  of  the  life-blood  of  helpless  and 
impoverished  operatives,  these  and  all  others  of  kin- 
dred spirit,  whatever  their  vocation,  will  hereafter 
face  a  public  more  vigilant  in  exposing  and  more 
merciless  in  punishing  their  sins  than  the  genera- 
tion that  has  just  passed  from  the  stage. 

I  will  not  dwell  on  the  lesson  of  warning  for  I 
trust  you  do  not  need  it.  The  American  students 
as  a  rule  leave  their  studies  with  high  ideals  of  char- 
acter and  conduct.  But  it  is  well  for  you  to  have  a 
clear  preception  of  the  environment  in  which  yOu 
will  find  yourselves,  I  prefer,  however,  to  point  this 
out  to  you  rather  as  an  appeal  than  as  a  personal 
warning.  I  mean  by  this  that  you  should  regard 
this  awakening  of  the  public  conscience,  which  we 
so  clearly  recognize,  as  an  appeal  to  you  to  throw 
yourselves  into  your  work  with  the  purpose  to  do  all 
in  your  power  to  strengthen  this  determination  of-  the 
people  to  maintain  public  virtue. 

I  count  you  as  peculiarly  fortunate  in  going  into 
active  life  in  so  propitious  circumstances.  I  hearti- 
ly congratulate  you  on  it.  I  recall  no  time  in  the 
past  half  century  when  one  going  from  college  into 
professional,  official  or  business  life  could  find  it  so 
easy  and  so  helpful  to  himself  to  set  his  moral 
standards  high  and  hold  to  them.  The  people  at 
large  are  everywhere  in  the  mood  to  welcome  men 
with  such  standards,  to  employ  them,  to  give  them 
such  positions  of  trust  and  responsibility  as  educated 
men  have  a  right  to  aspire  to.  They  are  not  looking 
for  cunning  tricksters,  but  for  earnest,  sensible,  well 
equipped  men,  who  can  stand  ''four-square"  to  all 
the  winds  of  temptation  and  honorably  serve  their 
day  and  generation.  They  wish  unselfish,  ungrasp- 
ing  men  in  great  industries,  who  in  the  spirit  of  their 
Lord  and  Master  shall  remember  the  brotherhood  of 


OF 

man.  It  is  for  you  to  say  whether  you  will  prove 
yourselves  worthy  of  the  times  upon  which  you  have 
fallen.  As  you  launch  your  craft  this  week  for  the 
long  voyage  before  you,  favoring  gales  and  propitious 
currents  are  waiting  to  help  you  to  a  happy  haven. 

We  are  this  week  to  lay  the  corner  stone  of  the 
Memorial  Building  which  shall  keep  green  the  mem- 
ory of  the  brave  and  patriotic  young  men  who, 
standing  where  you  stand  to-day,  willingly  sacrificed 
all  their  prospects  in  life  and  poured  out  their  blood 
on  southern  fields  that  you  and  I  might  dwell  here 
in  peace  and  prosperity  to-day.  Do  you  not  -some- 
times envy  them  the  chance  which  came  to  them  to 
make  so  glorious  a  record  and  to  render  the  Univer- 
sity and  the  country  forever  their  debtor?  That  pecu- 
liar fortune  can  never  be  yours.  But  a  fortune  hardly 
less  glorious  is  open  to  you  all.  You  have  the  chance 
in  this  age  to  be  what  the  Apostle  calls  '*a  crown 
of  rejoicing"  to  the  University  by  lives  so  pure 
and  noble  that  she  will  be  proud  to  enroll  your 
names  on  the  tablets  of  her  memory,  and  some  of 
you  by  lives  so  effective  and  conspicuous  that  she 
will  wish  to  place  your  names  on  the  tablets  of  bronze 
by  the  side  of  the  young  heroes  of  our  wars. 

The  colleges  and  universities  of  the  country  are 
about  to  be  subjected  to  a  severe  test.  The  public 
seems  convinced  that  they  are  furnishing  the  intel- 
lectual training  to  fit  their  graduates  for  useful  ser- 
vice in  every  vocation.  Never  were  these  graduates 
more  in  demand,  whereas  a  few  years  ago  many 
Questioned  whether  a  college  training  afforded  the 
best  preparation  for  certain  pursuits,  especially  for 
business  and  for  engineering.  Now  there  seems  to 
be  a  pretty  general  consensus  of  opinion  even  among 
those  who  emphasize  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  a 
practical  education  that  the  college  or  the  university 
or  the  technical  school  furnishes  the  best  mental 
outfit  for  life  in  most  vocations. 

But  now  it  is  to  be  demonstrated  whether  with  the 
intellectual  outfit  our  graduates  carry  away  from  the 

—7— 


University  that  high  moral  purpose  which  the  quick- 
ened conscience  of  our  day  is  going  to  demand  of  all 
upon  whom  the  seal  of  public  approbation  is  to  be 
set.  No  intellectual  furniture  will  supply  the  lack  of 
that.  No  institution  will  long  command  public  es- 
teem, whose  graduates  do  not  command  the  confi- 
dence of  the  communities  in  which  they  dwell. 
Hence  itJrs  th^t  ,the  teachers  urge  with  an  insistence 
that  often  seems  to  the  undergraduate  excessive  and 
puritanical  that  he  shall  in  his  college  life  cherish 
high  ideals  of  character  and  life.  It  is  the  habits 
formed  at  that  age  that  are  to  abide  and  shape  the 
future  career.  The  habits  you  have  to-day  are  likely 
to  be  for  most  of  you  the  determining  factors  in  the 
years-in  which  you  are  to  make  your  reputation.  If 
we,  your  instructors,  have  felt  called  to  give  some  of 
you  friendly  monitions  at  times,  it  was  because  we 
saw  in  your  present  the  presage  of  your  future.  We 
are  often  criticised  because  we  do  not  impart  ethical 
and  spiritual  ideals  with  a  compulsory  force.  But 
that  is  impossible  with  persons  of  the  age  of  college 
students.  We  can  affect  them  only  by  example  and 
by  personal  persuasion  and  warning.  Perhaps  we 
do  not  employ  those  means  enough.  But  really, 
when  we  come  down  to  the  hard  facts,  the  shaping 
of  the  student's  moral  and  spiritual  ideal  and  pur- 
pose is  his  individual  work,  and  in  the  last  analysis 
can  be  done  by  none  other  than  himself.  And  so  it 
is  that  you  come  up  to  this  eventful  day  with  your 
character,  whatever  it  is,  shaped  by  yourself  during 
all  these  formative  years.  That  is  the  moral  capital 
with  which  you  go  forth  to  your  destiny.  Not  that 
it  is  complete  and  unchangeable.  Not  that  you  can- 
not yet  repair  your  errors.  Not  that  you  need  de- 
spair of  moral  growth  and  improvement,  if  they  are 
needed.  But  your  reputation  and  that  of  the  Uni- 
versity are  largely  committed  to  you  as  you  are 
to-day.  Hence  for  our  sake  as  well  as  for  yours  we 
look  with  such  intense  interest  upon  you,  as  you 
turn  your  steps  from  our  doors,  and  we  follow  you 

-8— 


with  our  sympathy  through  all  the  trials  and  vicis- 
situdes of  your  career. 

For  notwithstanding  what  I  have  said  to  you  con- 
cerning your  good  fortune  in  going  out  into  the 
world  when  there  is  such  a  widespread  awakening 
of  conscience,  it  is  still  true  that  along  your  path 
you  will  meet  not  a  few  who  will  ridicule  your  scru- 
ples, and  by  example  and  by  advice  will  strive  to 
persuade  you  that  the  discreditable  roads  are  the 
short  and  sure  roads  to  success.  They  will  paint 
for  you  the  contrast  between  the  practical  wisdom  of 
the  sharper  in  the  market  place  and  the  mere  theories 
of  the  professor  in  the  class-room  to  the  sore  disad^ 
vantage  of  the  latter.  They  will  argue  to  convince 
you  that  it  is  by  the  shrewd  tricks  of  the  unscrupu=. 
lous  politician  rather  than  by  the  straightforward 
march  of  the  upright  soul  that  most  men  have 
reached  positions  of  eminence.  These  assaults  upon 
your  intelligence  and  your  honesty  will  be  repeated 
in  so  many  forms  and  with  such  untiring  assiduity 
and  seductiveness  that  you  are  in  danger  of  having 
your  confidence  in  your  own  opinions  and  in  your 
own  conscience  shaken  and  weakened.  You  will 
need  to  have  your  self-reliance  reinforced  constantly 
by  an  inspection  of  the  solid  moral  ground  on  which 
you  are  standing  to-day.  But  I  adjure  you  to  follow 
the  great  Apostle's  counsel  when  he  says  "take  unto 
you  the  whole  armour  of  God  that  you  may  be  able 
to  withstand  in  the  evil  day,  and,  having  done  all, 
to  stand." 

In  spite  of  what  I  have  said  at  the  outset  about  our 
instinct  for  associated  life  and  our  spirit  of  imitation, 
we  should  remember  that  if  we  are  to  build  charac- 
ter on  a  stable  and  enduring  foundation,  we  must 
not  trust  merely  to  being  borne  along  on  the  current 
of  opinion  and  feeling  which  is  moving  our  com- 
munity. We  must  place  ourselves  with  deliberation 
and  purpose,  regardless  of  the  sentiments  of  others, 
in  right  relations  to  God.  Life  is  personal.  To  your 
own  master  every  one  of  you  stands  or  falls.     It  is 

-9- 


not  the  question  whether  we  are  doing  as  well  as  our 
neighbors.  Their  consciences  do  not  furnish  the 
measure  by  which  we  are  to  be  tried.  Public  senti- 
ment does  not  always  furnish  a  safe,  permanent 
standard  of  right  conduct.  Like  the  tide,  it  ebbs 
and  flows.  It  may  be  your  high  calling  at  times  to 
confront  a  debased  public  opinion  on  some  subject 
with  the  lofty  moral  standard  which  your  conscience 
void  of  offence  towards  God  and  man  has  erected  in 
your  heart.  What  shall  be  the  test  of  the  standard? 
It  must  be  that  which  is  found  in  the  life  and  teach- 
ings of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Philosophers  have 
framed  many  theories  of  right  living.  But  the  sim- 
plest and  best,  the  only  one  which  so  moulds  human 
character  that  it  reflects  the  divine  image  and  glori- 
fies our  humble  lives  with  the  spirit  of  righteousness 
and  truth,  is  found  in  the  example  and  teaching  of 
our  Lord. 

One  of  the  most  striking  and  encouraging  charac- 
teristics of  the  last  decade  is  the  increasing  power  of 
the  life  and  teachings  of  Jesus  over  large  classes  of 
men,  who  hold  themselves  aloof  from  churches.  In 
Europe  as  well  as  in  America  associations  of  labor- 
ers who  have  persuaded  themselves  that  the  great 
ecclesiastical  organizations  are  controlled  by  men 
who  lack  sympathy  with  them  have  confessed  that 
He  is  their  friend,  and  that  His  instructions  and  His 
example  are  full  of  hope  and  cheer  for  them.  Even 
many  in  non-Christian  nations  who  have  not  aban- 
doned their  old  religions  have  come  to  see  and  ac- 
knowledge the  charm  of  His  life.  He  is  gradually 
conquering  the  world.  He  is  fulfilling  the  prediction 
He  made  in  full  view  of  the  great  sacrifice  He  was 
to  make,  'Mf  I  be  lifted  up,  I  will  draw  all  men  to 
myself."  In  this  age  of  quickened  conscience,  may 
you  with  the  help  of  the  Divine  spirit  yield  your- 
selves up  completely  to  His  gracious  influence  and 
find  in  Him  your  guide,  your  exemplar  and  your 
Savior. 


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